Start with a Question

In cooperation with the Barat Education Foundation and its TPS-Barat Teaching with Primary Sources from the Library of Congress  program, I've writt en a 2-part series about historical image analysis. Part 1 was published tonight and focuses on how to use digital tools to help students analyze and annotate historical images as part of their learning. The article includes: how student learning and engagement increases when they annotate digital images individually on at their desks vivid examples of student work with real historical images from my classroom user guides for Skitch , a powerful (and FREE) image annotation tool that is available across all mobile platforms Click here to read the article and see sample student work. Stay tuned for Part 2 next week. It will explain the teaching method behind deep image analysis and how it can be a dynamic part of the study of primary source evidence in your classroom.

Over the past several years I've posted many examples of collaborative learning in my history classrooms grades 8-10.  I've also spoken about the  #gallagherhistory  model at various conferences around the country and right here in Massachusetts.  The part that gets most students' and educators' attention is that I do not give tests.  Ever.   Lecture is also never a part of the student learning experience.  I invariably get follow up messages and emails filled with questions.  Here are some of the most asked questions and their answers. What is the formula? Here it is: Examples of media produced by students during our activities that promote analysis and discussion of evidence. Essential Question  that connects history to students' lives Evidence  from primary and scholarly sources that can be used to find an answer to the essential question Activity  to help students dig into the evidence and develop their own un...

I'm so proud of the hard work of my 9th grade 18th century history class on this most recent project.   EdSurge thought it was great too! Read about it and see some examples of student work by clicking the cover shot below.

Check out my latest post with the Smarter Schools Project.  It highlights great tech tools my students use all the time to keep everything at school organized and accessible. . Click here to read the post. Tech tools and strategies included in the post are: 1.  Remind for School-Home Communication 2. MyHomework for Tracking Assignments 3. Evernote for Keeping Notes Organized 4. Quizlet for Studying Anywhere

I was honored to be invited by Dr. Will Deyamport, III  to write a post with my students about our experience with a paperless classroom.  The link is below.  Please read and comment! Thanks Dr. Will! Paperless Love

Public education is changing.  But change is slow when new programs, ideas, or teaching methods don't fit into existing structures. Last spring I proposed a Student Help Desk program for our high school.  My hope was for students to have the opportunity to create tutorials that would help teachers and students integrate BYOD more smoothly and successfully at our school.  See, I don't believe in tech for tech's sake.  But our students are already bringing incredibly powerful smartphones and tablets to school, so why not teach them to leverage that power to enhance their academic experience?  BYOD can help students: collaborate ( Google Drive , Prezi , Padlet , messaging apps) create multimedia projects ( Animoto , Videolicious , Educreations , ChatterPix ) stay organized ( Evernote , Google Drive ) test their learning ( Socrative , SurveyMonkey , Quizlet ) This is how professionals are getting things done, so why shouldn't our students be working this w...

If you read my blog with any regularity or follow me on Twitter you know I've transitioned to a paperless classroom this year. I've been lucky enough to have students who are willing to be on this new adventure with me. My well-intentioned plans don't always work perfectly when deployed in a BYOD classroom of 25 students. We've decided that there are too many benefits to the paperless model to let a few technical difficulties get in our way. Teacher and students have worked hard, together, so that we can benefit from the opportunities that mobile technology provides in a paperless classroom environment.  If it weren't for my students and their enthusiasm I never could have come so far... and I truly believe there is much much more my students and I will get to learn as we continue on our adventure together. It only seemed right that when I had to opportunity to share my paperless successes at a professional conference, students should lead the way.  At the Blue...

How am I supposed to keep calm when I haven't given one single test yet this year? I'm required to give a semester exam.  What would an exam look like for a class in which students have not been tested? I have not required my students to memorize anything, but I have required them to research everything. I have not required my students to answer multiple choice questions with clear right or wrong answers, but I have required them to justify their varying opinions. How the heck would I create a semester exam that fit the standard I've set? I wasn't the only one with these questions racing around in my head.  Parents posed these questions to me throughout December parent conferences.  At least 6 or 7 different students raised their hands and asked about the exam in the weeks before winter break.  My answer was, "I have a few ideas but I haven't finalized anything.  I'll let you know with plenty of time to prepare." After much refle...

Last week my students helped me explain how we use smartphones, tablets, and laptops in our class daily to learn in new ways.  I had to opportunity to present to a group of teachers and administrators at the Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence conference in Disney World (where is was 75 degrees) while still at Reading Memorial High School in Massachusetts (where it was 12 degrees). Thanks to some fine work by many members of our technology staff, we were able to video conference with the professionals in Florida along with  Jennalee Anderson 's 7th grade classroom nearby in town using  Cisco's Jabber software . Nine of my sophomore history students helped me explain how we use devices in class every day.  I'm the one wearing green standing in the back.  Our library media specialist, Sharon Burke , is standing next to me in the middle. My students used iPads, iPad Minis, iPhones, Surface tablets, or any other device they bring to school and use on our BYOD...

App-smashing, according to Greg Kulowiec , is: I'm just starting to venture into app smashing as my high school students become more familiar with a variety of iPad apps.  I don't think app-smashing is something that I could have feasibly done much before this point in the year because I needed to familiarize my students with a foundational list of the apps that we will use all year long. Once they have that knowledge base and experience, they can create all kinds of products! The Topic This past week my sophomores created videos about the European Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 .  I wanted to do more than teach them the history; I wanted them to investigate a complex question. We talked about what makes a revolution a success or a failure.  As a class, we agreed on how to design a scale of success and failure for political revolution.  You'll see these scales later in their final products. Getting Started First, they accessed the event summar...

The answer is: BOTH The ed-tech integration cohort I'm working with this school year completed an iPad scavenger hunt with 9 tasks that required us to look for apps and work together to solve problems.  For one of the tasks we had to use Doodle Buddy to create our avatar.  It was fun.  We giggled.  But the real world classroom application of creating one's avatar was not immediately apparent.  How would this task help improve my students' learning experience? Here's the selfie and the resulting avatar from the scavenger hunt. Meh. At the same time, in all of my classes, students have gone paperless.  They're taking notes and carrying out class activities using mostly Evernote and the suite of accompanying apps.  One that they've been using quite a bit is Penultimate .  It has similar capabilities to Doodle Buddy, but it connects rather seamlessly to Evernote, so it fits into my class better.  Here's how it works: Before the Less...